Mag-log inChapter 112: TurinThe trail from the airfield led to a townhouse in a quiet residential stretch of Turin, the kind of address that told you nothing by looking at it clean stone facade, shuttered windows, no signage, no indication that anything inside was worth a second glance. Hale had found it through the ground crew's records, a car service booked under the same cash-paid discretion as the flight, dropped at this exact address eleven hours earlier.By the time Damien, Liora, and a driver Hale had vetted through three separate channels pulled up outside it, the house was empty.Not abandoned-in-a-hurry empty, the way the lake house had been. Cleaned. Professionally, thoroughly, the kind of empty that told Damien whoever had used this place understood exactly how to leave nothing behind."There's nothing here," Liora said, standing in the front hall, her voice carrying the flat and controlled. "No cup. No paper. Nothing.""There's always something," Damien said, though he didn't fu
Chapter 111: The BurnerDamien was standing on the edge of a private airstrip when Victor's call came through, wind off the runway loud enough that he had to press the phone hard against his ear to hear."Say that again," Damien said."It's a private security contractor," Victor said, his voice carrying the particular flatness Damien had started to recognize as the sound Victor made when he was working very hard not to sound like he was panicking. "Not staff. Not the men who work the mansion day to day. Hired muscle. The kind of outfit that specializes in quiet extraction and making problems disappear."Damien looked out at the row of hangars ahead of him, at the small jet Hale had flagged twenty minutes ago as having filed an irregular flight plan out of this exact airfield eleven hours earlier no passenger manifest, a flight crew paid in cash according to the ground staff Liora was currently working her way through with a story about a missing sister that was, technically, entirely
Chapter 110: The Lake HouseThe road narrowed the closer they got to the lake, gravel giving way to packed dirt threaded between trees so dense the morning light barely made it through. Mikhail sat forward in his seat, watching the treeline with the concentration of someone trying to match a memory to a landscape."Slower," he said. "It should be close now."Victor eased off the gas. The lake appeared between the trees first, pewter-colored under the low sun, and then the house low, stone, deliberately unremarkable, the kind of place built to be driven past without a second look.No cars in the drive. No lights.Victor felt something in his chest tighten before his mind had finished cataloguing why. Empty was better than occupied by the wrong people. Empty was also, possibly, too late.He parked well back from the house, out of sight of the windows, and looked at Mikhail. "Stay in the car.""I want to help.""You have helped. You got us here." Victor's voice was gentler than he meant
Chapter 109: The First LeadThey regrouped at a hotel outside the town closest to the wall, a small enough place that Damien had booked out half the rooms under names that weren't theirs. Nobody had slept. Nobody looked like they were going to.Damien set his laptop up on the desk and called Hale, who answered on the second ring, still in New York, still Damien could tell from the light behind him hadn't left whatever room he'd taken this call from since the first one at two in the morning."You look worse than I feel," Hale said, "which is saying something.""Talk to me," Damien said, dropping into the chair. Liora sat on the arm of it, her hand resting on his shoulder, the two of them having found, sometime over the last several hours, a way to occupy the same space without needing to say much.On the screen, Hale angled his laptop so they could see the second monitor behind him, three windows of data stacked across it. "Volkov has three confirmed holdings outside the property you
Chapter 108: The WallVictor reached the wall a little after four in the morning, Mikhail directing him from the passenger seat with the quiet, exact confidence of a boy who had walked this road once already tonight and wasn't about to get it wrong twice."There," Mikhail said. "That's the gate. She said, she'd be here.Victor pulled the car onto the shoulder and killed the engine. The road was empty. No Elena. No sign anyone had been standing anywhere at all, just a long stretch of pale gravel running along a stone wall too high to see over, and a silence that had the particular quality of silence after something has already happened.He got out slowly. Mikhail followed, quicker, already moving toward the spot he remembered, and Victor let him, watching the boy crouch down at the base of the wall like he was checking his own memory against the ground."This is where she was," Mikhail said. "I'm sure of it."Victor crouched beside him. The gravel here was disturbed scuffed in a patter
Chapter 107: Victor and MikhailVictor let the boy finish the orange juice before he asked anything else. his heart beat had never been this fast, anxiety and fear warring for dominance in him, but he had to stay calm to be able to get the answers to his questions."Better?" Victor asked.Mikhail nodded. He'd stopped swaying in the chair, some of the color back in his face. Up close, in better light, Victor could see the boy's feature his eyes were green the color of moss and hair a curly brown, he looked well taken care of, except for his worn out cloth he was ok."Tell me about her," Victor said. "Not the message. Her. How is she."Mikhail considered the question with more care than most adults gave it. "She's strong," he said finally. "She doesn't cry where people can see. She taught me English from books she wasn't supposed to have. She taught me how to watch a room and know who is dangerous and who is only loud." He paused. "She draws. All the time. Buildings. She doesn't know s
Chapter 4: RestedDamien's POVDamien hated mornings.For the past three years, waking up had felt less like rest and more like surviving another night. Most mornings came with a migraine clawing behind his eyes, half-finished whiskey, wine and pills prescribed by his doctors discarded on the bedsi
Chapter 3: The Second NightLiora couldn't sleep.Not a single wink. Not even close.She laid on her side with Damien's arm still wrapped around her waist, she had watched the city light move across the ceiling in slow, shapeless patterns while Damien slept with his body practically molding into he
The elevator doors opened and Liora stepped out into a place that didn't feel like somewhere people actually lived. The place screamed luxury from top to bottomThe floor-to-ceiling windows. Marble that reflected the city back at itself. The kind of silence that costs money to maintain. She had a s
Chapter 1The Maybach smelled like usual, something that only the elite of the elite will recognize, Wealth.Damien Voss CEO of Voss industries, had his head against the window with his eyes closed, his hair looked like he had run his hand through it multiple times and his face said it all, dark ci







